1967 Plymouth Belvedere GTX - Triple-Black Thunder

In 1967, Plymouth’s ad tagline was, “Plymouth is out to win you over this year.” Little did anyone know that the winning-over would extend well beyond 1967.

In Joe Greer’s case, one of them won him over during his high school days in the 1980s.

“I bought a ’67 Belvedere in B5 Blue with a 318, for $75, that needed some work,” he says of the B-Body he bought when he was 16. “I also bought a ’68 Polara four-door that had a very good running 318. I put it in the Belvedere, and drove that for about five years. That’s where I got my start with the Belvederes.” It also helped him stand out from the Blue Oval and Bowtie ponycars that his friends built and drove.

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Joe started collecting information about the mid-size ’67 Plymouths, especially the top-of-the-line Belvedere GTX series. Eventually, he spotted one at a burger joint in his hometown of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, whose owner rarely drove it. He asked him if the 440/four-speed/Dana 60 GTX was for sale, but the owner said that it wasn’t.

About a year later, Joe found out that the owner had passed away, but the GTX was still in the same garage where its owner had parked it. He went to look at the car—rarely driven as the owner’s widow couldn’t drive a four-speed—and Joe asked if she was interested in selling it. “She said, ‘Nahhh—I want to hold onto the car,’” Joe recalls, adding that he told her, “If you’re ever looking to sell it, you look me up.”

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One year later, she contacted Joe. “She called me and said, ‘I hate to let the car go, but I have to. My pipes are busted in my basement, and I need a thousand dollars.’ I said, ‘What do you want for the car?’ I bought the car for a thousand dollars, and I’ve had it ever since.”

Joe’s upgraded his GTX since then, including an engine change done out of necessity. “Unfortunately, I grenaded the first engine,” he says. “A friend of mine still has that block, which has about a foot-long crack in it, and I can still get it back.”

Joe built another 440, based on a ’69 block to replace it, and it served him well on the street and at nearby Cecil County (Maryland) Dragway, where Joe ran a best of 11.70 seconds on the ¼-mile.

6/17Engine: GTX engine, take 3: A 528-inch Hemi built by Jess Miller Machine Shop in West Chester, PA.

I sold a whole car so I could buy pieces for a Hemi!

By the mid-’90s, Joe had started doing resto work on his GTX, made easier by its previous life in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania, away from the heavy road salt seen around the Great Lakes. He began going to Carlisle, and finding parts for his B-Body.

He’d had his sights on something stronger for the GTX’s engine bay. “I said, ‘One of these days, I’m going to get the money together, and build a Hemi.’” Joe says. After selling a non-Mopar musclecar that he had, he had a bankroll for his engine project. As Joe puts it, “I sold that whole car so I could buy pieces for a Hemi!”

Five years later, that Hemi is still there—along with plenty of wedding-day memories for Joe and his wife, Vickie. “The GTX made up a good part of our wedding video—going to the church in the car, me wearing a white tuxedo and she’s wearing her white gown,” Joe remembers. “We basically had a hot rod wedding, with a lot of (other) hot rods there.” He adds that, of the 600 pictures and dozen videos made of the ceremony and wedding dance that followed, some about 40-percent of those images include the GTX!

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By the way, with the Hemi, Joe’s GTX now has an 11.20-second pass as its best 1/4-mile run (so far).

Joe also owns a pair of sharp “Swept-Wing” Dodge Custom Royal Lancers from the late ’50s, and has this advice if you’re looking for a project Mopar that’s like one you dreamed about long ago. “You’ve got to make sure it’s the real deal, and make sure it has good quarter- panels,” he says.

But, if you find one that has solid quarters like Joe’s, it’ll likely win you over the way that a B5 Blue Belvie did to Joe years ago.